Crying in my Coffee

Spring opened shop today.  Like the creaking aluminum window gate of Jack Shoes – Venta de calzado al por mayor y menor - on my way to the subway this morning, some little misplaced Asian man must have come out of his third floor apartment and decided today was the day to wrestle with the pulley and open Spring up for business too.

     I took a walk on lunch break.  Not one of those get-the-hell-out-of-the-office walks, but the kind of walks you take to live - to reach your free hand up and actually feel the sun on your hair, to notice blonde babies behind their Manhattanite plastic stroller covers, to hear thirds and fifths in the car horns on Second, to wish you’d left that thick brown scarf you’ve worn every day for four straight months at home.

     I walked towards the spot where I ate my yogurt and sandwich I brought from home the first week. I sat alone on a chipped bench in the hot September sun by the river and read the beginning of my series of subway books.  I missed him.

The first red Maple leaf fell there, fell right next to me.  Picking it up and pressing it into the pages of my fifth book, I told him about it.

I cried at that spot.  Burst into tears and hid puffy eyes and cold wet cheeks behind the warm fur lining of my winter hood.  I ran from him.

     All winter it rained here.  The snows of Michigan and the piercing winds of Chicago were things of the past.  Like tall tales of harsh days on the prairie, white memories were reduced to copy room conversations.  At least trudging over snow or ice is bearable.  A firm rubber-soled shoe, any shoe, will do the trick.  You simply glide over the snow-packed pavement, and, should you manage to stay on two feet, you make it comfortably – and dryly - to your destination.

     But rain seeps.  It soaks.  It sneaks its way into cuffs of grey wool work pants, zipper holes in boots, foot straps on ballet flats, and the plastic stitches of the rubber sole leaving its undeniably chilling mark onto clean cotton socks and defenseless toes.

     I wanted to walk on the sunny side.  Cut quickly across Second Avenue traffic to get there.  An incredible upcoming audition, impressed professors, beauty and being God, Ned and Kristen.  He was brimming.  I had to let him go practice.

The Asian man was back tonight.  Walking to my Queens apartment, I barely noticed him, crouched down only a few feet off the ground, straining to reach the chain link padlock to lock Jack’s aluminum gate.  The remaining fluorescents through the red awning of the grocery store and the headlights of the passing bus lit the sidewalk.  He was closing shop. 

It’ll pour cold cats and dogs again, encrusting those clean white socks in my top drawer with the remains of Midtown’s daytime inhabitants, and I’ll mutter barely audible curses on my sludgy way back toward 1915 Gates.  But business was good today.  And spring will soon stay open for business.

Valerie Strattan 

The vibe around the office was pretty lax today, so when I saw the steady handfuls of snow being tossed from the sky I decided to leave while the roads were still driveable.  I informed the receptionist that I would be leaving. For the day. At two in the afternoon.  “Well, drive safely,” she replied.  I took her nonchalance as support for my decision, grabbed my laptop and left.

I felt justified because the roads were terrible, and traffic was bad.  I’d finish the rest of my work day from a cafe a few blocks from my house, where I could hopefully pirate an internet connection and order a café au lait.  If I got snowed in there at least I’d be close enough to sled home.

While my mind was fixating on the au lait my car somehow ended up on the Kansas turnpike, taking me not toward Westport but instead the southern Kansas City suburbs.  I stayed on the expressway a little longer than was wise, hoping I’d pass some familiar surroundings, but as the distance between exits stretched longer and longer, I decided to exit and turn around.

Sliding across two lanes of traffic and an increasingly bad rear visibility were two large problems, but the biggest one was the fact that I had no clue how to get back downtown.  City skyline was replaced by rows and rows of railroad and abandoned box cars.  I couldn’t even navigate toward the big buildings. 

Just as panic set in my phone rang.  I answered it with relief.  If I die a snowy, steely death at least someone will be able to say he was the last person to talk to me. “Kendon!” I wailed into the phone as a greeting.  “I’m completely lost!”

He navigated me off the highway and onto a road that seemed like it might possibly be in some way familiar – to him.  I was still desperately disoriented.  “Now, describe your surroundings,” he said.  “I see a fireworks wholesaler.  Wait, three fireworks wholesalers all in a row.  And a lot of beautiful buildings with boarded up windows.”  “Oh, I know exactly where you are,” he said confidently. Thank goodness. “That’s the West Bottoms. The buildings are incredible, but people get mugged and murdered there all the time.” I clicked the automatic lock. “You’re going to want to get out.”

Yes but how?  The West Bottoms of Kansas City were once an industrial district now used for warehouse storage. The neighborhood sits at the bottom of a large hill, completely isolated from downtown save for a lone bridge.  “Twelfth Street goes through,” he said. “Call me when you make it out.”

I started doubling back toward Twelfth, passing such upstanding establishments like “House of Macabre” and “The Edge of Hell.” (I later discovered in addition to dealing in the fireworks trade, knifings and theft, the West Bottoms are known for having the best haunted houses in the city.) Not one person was walking on the sidewalk or exiting a building and there were no other cars on the road. I took wrong turns. I drove the opposite way down a one-way street. I drove past the same abandoned factory three times. I sat at tracks and watched a freight train roll by for eleven minutes. I stared at a cluster of empty semis sitting in a warehouse parking lot.  I saw a BMW. A BMW? Follow the nice car!

I pulled a sharp U-turn, my car fishtailing, and chased after the only other driver-occupied car in the West Bottoms. My instincts were right.  The angel in the BMW guided me around a corner and onto the blessed Twelfth Street Bridge.  The skyline materialized in front of my car. I saw street signs for Quality Hill.  I’d made it out of the West Bottoms, alive, un-shanked, with no bullet wounds. It will be a long time before I go back.